Not only that, but it will become "The boy who cried wolf." I can see the false positive rate on this being quite high. After dozens (hundreds?) of false positives and lawsuits from people wrongly harassed etc. it will end up being ignored. Even if it is right occasionally, it won't matter. Mod parent up.
This actually makes perfect sense - if implemented properly, that is. And by implementing properly I mean that people are provided secure boxes to store their stuff in. It would also make perfect sense if they would give out portable radio sets for free in exchange of the phones for the duration of the stay, so that family members still can communicate while inside the park even if they split.
Otherwise, this is good. The age of information really calls for some changes to the unwritten laws of common courtesy and tact. Flame me all you want, but it is just not 'nice' to visit an entertainment site and not actually talk to your family members. Especially kids, who really need attention from their parents. It is not much of a secret that social skills are not the strongest traits among many computer-guy types, so this measure would help both the kids - providing them something they need - and their fathers - gently pushing them to learn to work on themselves. Not to mention that being close to one's family makes one more happy, like it or not:) and if *that* requires a little push, what the heck.
And no, this is not a privacy violation, not any more than other common courtesy restrictions are. We (well, most of us) are grown up knowing it is not polite to not visibly pay attention when you're being talked to, and this is not regarded as a breach of privacy. Not paying attention to one's spouse and kids at an entertainment site is being 'not comme-il-faut' about as much, and giving people a clue about it is not a bad idea at all. After all, you're always free to stay home anyway.
All in all, I really hope Alton Towers' experiment will not result in diminished incomes.. assuming they do it the right way, of course.
However, if one simply believes that information given to him/her is free and unbiased, (s)he will never seek other perspectives and probably will dismiss any other views that conflicts with his/hers. It's actually even worse - as it is today, people here in Russia are happy to be spoon-fed. They have too much pride to acknowledge that a lot of the negative heard from the informational sources abroad actually makes sense. People will hear what they want to hear.
Ironically enough, most western mass media plays along by creating an image of Russia that has little in common with what is actually happening here. Not saying the western mass media is to blame, but it's most certainly a factor.
On a brighter note, it's not all that bad as it may seem. These tricks 'only' work with the generally badly educated population, and lack of a proverbial 'middle class' which is about the worst thing about today's Russia. If said middle class will develop and achieve a certain threshold, the process will become irreversible and no iron curtain policies will be sustainable.
Let me restate: the way I understand it, having a sizable middle class is not compatible with any iron curtain policies whatsoever. And as a middle class is like a pre-requisite to be able to compete in today's globalized world, I hope these attempts at creating an informational shield are just convulsions of the old system where people would just blindly believe what their government tells them to.
Most news Web sites are no longer final destinations. The report found that many users insist that the sites, and even individual pages, offer plenty of options to navigate elsewhere for more information, the project found. Rosenstiel said he's even able to reach Washington Post stories through the New York Times' Web site. What I can say... WOW! These people discovered how "teh internets" works. Makes me wonder what they will say once they find out about "web 2.0".
Although at these rates, it will not probably happen before 2020 or so.
PHP is a language solely designed for building web sites, whereas Java and the.Net framework are not. Java and.Net can build web sites, but if you're going to compare them, you need to compare them on that level. Is that to imply that something which is specifically built for a purpose is always better at said purpose than something which is built for a broader range, including the purpose in question?
But HD DVD doesn't sound stupid. It says exactly what it is, and doesn't embarrass itself. Blu-ray, besides being spelled incorrectly, says nothing about what it is. Whatever happened to the glory days of Video Home System, Compact Disc, and Digital Versatile Disc? Are these all *that* much better than BR really? I agree that unlike BR they give people a vague idea what they are about, but you honestly don't expect people to instantly understand what either of them implies anyway. Think of it, if you never knew what a Digital Versatile Disc is, what'd you imagine it to be? A disc with digits on it that can be used as a lot of other things?:)
It's more like a product trademark to me: you don't complain that the word Panasonic is 'better' than say Toshiba, just because Panasonic literally means pro-sound and Toshiba is a compound noun where To- means Tokyo, and what -shiba is I forgot. But that doesn't still make Panasonic any 'better'.
Nordic Blondes and Irish redheads get frisked pretty throughly. If they are very large breasted then we have to really check them over, make them get naked, take photos, oil them up and take more photos, etc...
it's all in the name of security! If we did not do this terrorists would be blowing up EVERYTHING!!!! Every-one, not every-thing. Remember, we are talking about Nordic blondes and Irish redheads blowing here.
From my point of view (I live in Moscow) it looks like this.
The problem of having a Latin TLD that translates visibly to something different in Russian is a perfectly valid issue, which could (and quite probably will) be used as grounds to (attempt to) establish more governmental control over the Russian part of the Internet, or as Runet as it is often references to by the media here.
I do not expect them to really erect some kind of Great Chinese Wall or something, it both will not work and is not needed either. While some authorities are quite likely thinking that this is desirable, I believe the reasons are more practical: they are more interested in control over the Russian Internet as a market. Administrating top level domain registration means they will have a way to influence who will get to be present in the new Runet and who will have trouble with that, and this translates into both monetary profits and political influence. If they do it 'right', transition may take a couple of years, maybe as much as five.. but after that, basically the powers that be will decide what Russians can read and what we can't.
This is quite in line with all the state corporations they've been creating lately to seize (or regain, from a certain view) control over the state economics. Also I'd like to remind that they bought LiveJournal recently, the most popular Russian intelligentsia (yep, we still have that) playground.
The Big Brother is back, and this time he's technologically armed.
Well there are actually going to be 4 of them in the pairlament, and no, communists are usually not really negotiating anything no matter what. They are living pretty much in the 90s, keeping their slogans that boil down to 'down with the anti-people government/regime' which is there for like 10 years already. Their electorate (older people) are going fast due to natural reasons, but this time they seem to have got some votes of the dissenters who don't take Zhirinovsky serious and who realize that Fair Russia is not any different from United Russia.
Most likely from the GAS "Vybory" (short for State Automatized System "Elections") that is used to calculate preliminary voting results.
I worked for 9 years in the Central Election Commission of Russia, and during my time a lot of technical people had access to the database, and it's not really hard to grab a copy of the DB or a report. I quit that job some years ago, but somehow I doubt a lot of things changed.
This is not a security hole; the data is entered into the system straight from the signed protocol as soon as a lower level election commission does, and protocols are being made public right after they are signed. It also has no official status, at the data is only used for preliminary figures; the official results have to be delivered in paper form.
While we're at it, the site of the Central Election Commission is http://www.cikrf.ru/ and the present election results will be eventually posted at http://www.cikrf.ru/elect_duma/npa/index.jsp. This is in Russian however, so I don't know how useful that would be..
2/3 of the Russian Duma (parliament) has the authority to amend the Constitution, and of course they want to be able to do that by themselves. And they barely made it - they will have 310 +/- 5 seats out of 450.
I think in the next 10 years when we really start seeing the results of this type of thing, we will see a lot of lives that can reach less that what they potentially could have, or more acceptance of a person's past behavior that was a bit childish. If you think the latter, then ask yourself by today's politicians aren't more frank and public about their past 'drug' indescresions...since we are now starting to get well into the age ranks of people where very few are out there that never even tried any before ever. Nope...still taboo if you want to be in public office. I am actually 'sure' of the latter. Your analogy with the drugs experience for public office candidates/holders is good, however I believe it is just 'still too early' to expect changes. I give it about 20 years for the (civilized) world to universally accept the fact that people do stupid things when they are young. Hopefully.:)
social networking platforms won't bother with pgp etc. until there is enough demand for that. and somehow I doubt there will be enough demand in the nearest future.
we are waiting for a new world, made from people who know what to make public and what not to, because they are fully aware of consequences. the problems like those stated in the article are in my opinion merely transitional. once the new reality sets in, there will be unwritten laws on what to do / what to say / how to behave online, not unlike those we abide by in public IRL. until then, people will suffer for them not being careful and bitch about it. oh well.
> And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think I'd like nothing more than the complete breakdown of the music industry so that you'd actually have to go out to bars to hear people play
Why would _you_ have to? There would always be a lot of those who are eager to try new stuff and tell the world of it. If you're none of these, no problem - you will know their opinion, and the opinion of the masses.. and given that you usually know what kind of music you like, something like http://last.fm/ would easily let you keep up with time.
The other good part is that most of the 'promotion' crap that involves sticking bad songs into our ears would be gone. Part of the problem with the today's music industry is that bands and performers being hyped are often outright sub par, because they somehow can afford 'promotion', and the better ones that are out there often just can't compete. This way, overall music quality available would improve as well.
That Radiohead decision along with things like http://www.sellaband.com/ are hopefully signs of the new musical industry. Die evil eMpTyV.
When existing browsers constantly break standards, do we need "more"?
I mean, seriously - I can do anything I need to do with a web page with the tools we have right now. Adding more options just results in more bloat, more exceptions and errors, and more difficult compatibility. It means new versions of other software to keep up, and new ways to exploit.
When do we need well enough alone? It's probably just a clever ruse to make Microsoft and other browser developers to finally support HTML 4.
Not unlike during negotiations, when one party proposes something that will obviously be never accepted by the other party, and they consent on something halfway.
Where we have gone astray culturally is that we have focused almost exclusively on starting salary as an indicator of the value of the particular major. since when earning a higher salary has started to be regarded as being 'gone astray culturally' may I ask? it's supply and demand, pure and simple. what point is there to lament the fact that humanitarians are in somewhat less demand than the teachers like them to be?
To address problems like climate change, Mr. Kushner said, graduates will need to understand much more than technology. "That's sociology, that's economics, that's politics, that's public policy." once again, it's supply and demand. if students lacking essential humanitarian courses are still in high demand, and those who actually attend to these do not gain much of an edge over the former, then it just will not happen.
Such moves are being driven by the high salaries commanded by professors in certain fields do we hear 'oversupply of professors in the fields that are in less demand'?
all in all, I don't see what is there to 'fix' at the education level. the education system forms the supply of the specialists, not the demand, so it merely reflects the expectations of the contemporary young people. and the fact that people do change their occupation later a lot is not very relevant here, as demand is based on the people's perception of their future career.
if there is something to be fixed then it's what the young people should expect with different educational background. good luck with trying to fix that though;)
The essential problem with the email/"communication 2.0" dualism is that they are perceived in different environments - email remains a "Ding an sich" while the real communication is being done "somewhere else". So young people ditch one in favor of the other, in spite of the fact that the private messages they send in every communication environment work practically the same as email does. But as long as the "interesting" part is being done on a friendly site with nice looking graphics and for the "dull" communication you have to run a boring mail client (or at least load up some "other" site), there will indeed be a gap in perception.
Once the communication systems mature enough to integrate the full power of today's email features into the services they provide, the gap will close. And yes indeed Google's GMail chat integration is a logical step in this direction.
> I agree. Once they enter the "Real" business world, they'll be using whatever communication method their employer chooses for them. Like it or not, much of the business world uses email for a large part of their communication infrastructure.
Well I myself kind of disagree with the article's conclusion as well, but this is not an argument against it. That young people today grow up without using email as their communication tool of choice means they will be more efficient at using the means they're more accustomed to. And business will adapt to it sooner or later in some way or another, possibly by accommodating another set of tools if it proves to be affordable and more efficient than the ordinary email.
Think of it the same way as of Google Docs http://docs.google.com/ - these are going to be 'just' better than the usual MS Word stuff at the moment they implement the entire MS Word's feature set. Once Google Docs type of software hits the market AND there are people who know how to use it AND prefer it to emailing the stupid files, business will switch over to use it. The concept of people obligatory running in-corporate weblogs may seem too bizarre right now but I won't be surprised if it will happen in say 10-15 years - the time needed for these youngsters of today to mature.
And still this falls somewhat short of predicting whether email will still be used in future or not. Email is a tool, and it has its ups and downs for different purposes. Today there are lots of areas (esp. collaboration related) where it is not all that great, and yet people still use it because they don't really have an alternative. Well, once they will have a better tool for a specific purpose, they will use it for sure. It still doesn't mean that email as we know it will be neglected; I'm fairly sure it will survive in some form or another due to its ubiquitousness.
>The ugliest question I got was: "We see from your grades and your resume that you're obviously a very intelligent person. In this company we have all sorts of people. How do you feel about working together with average people?" (Not an exact quote, it's taken from memory and translated). Try answering that question without being condescending.
Oh, this one is easy. You state that you have enough experience communicating and working with people of different intellectual capabilities, and, having known others that are above you in degrees of intelligence, it's safe to presume that you know what the 'averages' would expect of you and how they would like to be treated.
Well, there are enough issues where it is a question of individiual preferences rather than of 'truth'. In my Nokia-Motorola example, what is the correct answer? There is no correct answer.. especially if you consider that -Adams-style! - most people don't know the question, i.e. people don't really always know what they want from a product, they usually know what they THINK they want from one, and it's not that rare they turn out wrong on this. I know I have been in the past and will probably be in the future.:)
When you need a decision, you often don't want the 'real truth', and not even (gasp!) 'valid opinions'. You want to find someone who 'feels the way you do' and see what they would choose, following the simple reasoning 'he likes A, B, C and D, and I like A, B and C; maybe trying out D wouldn't be a bad idea.' Depending on how the ratings are implemented, the ability to find out your 'model person' of sorts could prove quite useful in lots of decisions.
That said, this doesn't devaluate the Valid Opinions entirely. It just kind of forces people to use social networks properly, that is, as just a bunch of (hopefully neatly sorted) opinions to choose from.
Slashdot Mirror
Shortest path from Microsoft to Evil
Microsoft
ASCII
2 (number)
Evil
3 clicks needed
Too bored to make a good pun out of this so please someone else do.
This actually makes perfect sense - if implemented properly, that is. And by implementing properly I mean that people are provided secure boxes to store their stuff in. It would also make perfect sense if they would give out portable radio sets for free in exchange of the phones for the duration of the stay, so that family members still can communicate while inside the park even if they split.
:) and if *that* requires a little push, what the heck.
Otherwise, this is good. The age of information really calls for some changes to the unwritten laws of common courtesy and tact. Flame me all you want, but it is just not 'nice' to visit an entertainment site and not actually talk to your family members. Especially kids, who really need attention from their parents. It is not much of a secret that social skills are not the strongest traits among many computer-guy types, so this measure would help both the kids - providing them something they need - and their fathers - gently pushing them to learn to work on themselves. Not to mention that being close to one's family makes one more happy, like it or not
And no, this is not a privacy violation, not any more than other common courtesy restrictions are. We (well, most of us) are grown up knowing it is not polite to not visibly pay attention when you're being talked to, and this is not regarded as a breach of privacy. Not paying attention to one's spouse and kids at an entertainment site is being 'not comme-il-faut' about as much, and giving people a clue about it is not a bad idea at all. After all, you're always free to stay home anyway.
All in all, I really hope Alton Towers' experiment will not result in diminished incomes.. assuming they do it the right way, of course.
Ironically enough, most western mass media plays along by creating an image of Russia that has little in common with what is actually happening here. Not saying the western mass media is to blame, but it's most certainly a factor.
On a brighter note, it's not all that bad as it may seem. These tricks 'only' work with the generally badly educated population, and lack of a proverbial 'middle class' which is about the worst thing about today's Russia. If said middle class will develop and achieve a certain threshold, the process will become irreversible and no iron curtain policies will be sustainable.
Let me restate: the way I understand it, having a sizable middle class is not compatible with any iron curtain policies whatsoever. And as a middle class is like a pre-requisite to be able to compete in today's globalized world, I hope these attempts at creating an informational shield are just convulsions of the old system where people would just blindly believe what their government tells them to.
Although at these rates, it will not probably happen before 2020 or so.
Welcome to the wonderful world of the wisdom of the crowds. :)
I really hope you do not speak from personal experience.
It's more like a product trademark to me: you don't complain that the word Panasonic is 'better' than say Toshiba, just because Panasonic literally means pro-sound and Toshiba is a compound noun where To- means Tokyo, and what -shiba is I forgot. But that doesn't still make Panasonic any 'better'.
it's all in the name of security! If we did not do this terrorists would be blowing up EVERYTHING!!!! Every-one, not every-thing. Remember, we are talking about Nordic blondes and Irish redheads blowing here.
http://www.daskeyboard.com/big.html ftw!
From my point of view (I live in Moscow) it looks like this.
The problem of having a Latin TLD that translates visibly to something different in Russian is a perfectly valid issue, which could (and quite probably will) be used as grounds to (attempt to) establish more governmental control over the Russian part of the Internet, or as Runet as it is often references to by the media here.
I do not expect them to really erect some kind of Great Chinese Wall or something, it both will not work and is not needed either. While some authorities are quite likely thinking that this is desirable, I believe the reasons are more practical: they are more interested in control over the Russian Internet as a market. Administrating top level domain registration means they will have a way to influence who will get to be present in the new Runet and who will have trouble with that, and this translates into both monetary profits and political influence. If they do it 'right', transition may take a couple of years, maybe as much as five.. but after that, basically the powers that be will decide what Russians can read and what we can't.
This is quite in line with all the state corporations they've been creating lately to seize (or regain, from a certain view) control over the state economics. Also I'd like to remind that they bought LiveJournal recently, the most popular Russian intelligentsia (yep, we still have that) playground.
The Big Brother is back, and this time he's technologically armed.
Well there are actually going to be 4 of them in the pairlament, and no, communists are usually not really negotiating anything no matter what. They are living pretty much in the 90s, keeping their slogans that boil down to 'down with the anti-people government/regime' which is there for like 10 years already. Their electorate (older people) are going fast due to natural reasons, but this time they seem to have got some votes of the dissenters who don't take Zhirinovsky serious and who realize that Fair Russia is not any different from United Russia.
Most likely from the GAS "Vybory" (short for State Automatized System "Elections") that is used to calculate preliminary voting results.
I worked for 9 years in the Central Election Commission of Russia, and during my time a lot of technical people had access to the database, and it's not really hard to grab a copy of the DB or a report. I quit that job some years ago, but somehow I doubt a lot of things changed.
This is not a security hole; the data is entered into the system straight from the signed protocol as soon as a lower level election commission does, and protocols are being made public right after they are signed. It also has no official status, at the data is only used for preliminary figures; the official results have to be delivered in paper form.
While we're at it, the site of the Central Election Commission is http://www.cikrf.ru/ and the present election results will be eventually posted at http://www.cikrf.ru/elect_duma/npa/index.jsp. This is in Russian however, so I don't know how useful that would be..
2/3 of the Russian Duma (parliament) has the authority to amend the Constitution, and of course they want to be able to do that by themselves. And they barely made it - they will have 310 +/- 5 seats out of 450.
social networking platforms won't bother with pgp etc. until there is enough demand for that. and somehow I doubt there will be enough demand in the nearest future.
we are waiting for a new world, made from people who know what to make public and what not to, because they are fully aware of consequences. the problems like those stated in the article are in my opinion merely transitional. once the new reality sets in, there will be unwritten laws on what to do / what to say / how to behave online, not unlike those we abide by in public IRL. until then, people will suffer for them not being careful and bitch about it. oh well.
> And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think I'd like nothing more than the complete breakdown of the music industry so that you'd actually have to go out to bars to hear people play
Why would _you_ have to? There would always be a lot of those who are eager to try new stuff and tell the world of it. If you're none of these, no problem - you will know their opinion, and the opinion of the masses.. and given that you usually know what kind of music you like, something like http://last.fm/ would easily let you keep up with time.
The other good part is that most of the 'promotion' crap that involves sticking bad songs into our ears would be gone. Part of the problem with the today's music industry is that bands and performers being hyped are often outright sub par, because they somehow can afford 'promotion', and the better ones that are out there often just can't compete. This way, overall music quality available would improve as well.
That Radiohead decision along with things like http://www.sellaband.com/ are hopefully signs of the new musical industry. Die evil eMpTyV.
I mean, seriously - I can do anything I need to do with a web page with the tools we have right now. Adding more options just results in more bloat, more exceptions and errors, and more difficult compatibility. It means new versions of other software to keep up, and new ways to exploit.
When do we need well enough alone? It's probably just a clever ruse to make Microsoft and other browser developers to finally support HTML 4.
Not unlike during negotiations, when one party proposes something that will obviously be never accepted by the other party, and they consent on something halfway.
all in all, I don't see what is there to 'fix' at the education level. the education system forms the supply of the specialists, not the demand, so it merely reflects the expectations of the contemporary young people. and the fact that people do change their occupation later a lot is not very relevant here, as demand is based on the people's perception of their future career.
if there is something to be fixed then it's what the young people should expect with different educational background. good luck with trying to fix that though
The essential problem with the email/"communication 2.0" dualism is that they are perceived in different environments - email remains a "Ding an sich" while the real communication is being done "somewhere else". So young people ditch one in favor of the other, in spite of the fact that the private messages they send in every communication environment work practically the same as email does. But as long as the "interesting" part is being done on a friendly site with nice looking graphics and for the "dull" communication you have to run a boring mail client (or at least load up some "other" site), there will indeed be a gap in perception.
Once the communication systems mature enough to integrate the full power of today's email features into the services they provide, the gap will close. And yes indeed Google's GMail chat integration is a logical step in this direction.
> I agree. Once they enter the "Real" business world, they'll be using whatever communication method their employer chooses for them. Like it or not, much of the business world uses email for a large part of their communication infrastructure.
Well I myself kind of disagree with the article's conclusion as well, but this is not an argument against it. That young people today grow up without using email as their communication tool of choice means they will be more efficient at using the means they're more accustomed to. And business will adapt to it sooner or later in some way or another, possibly by accommodating another set of tools if it proves to be affordable and more efficient than the ordinary email.
Think of it the same way as of Google Docs http://docs.google.com/ - these are going to be 'just' better than the usual MS Word stuff at the moment they implement the entire MS Word's feature set. Once Google Docs type of software hits the market AND there are people who know how to use it AND prefer it to emailing the stupid files, business will switch over to use it. The concept of people obligatory running in-corporate weblogs may seem too bizarre right now but I won't be surprised if it will happen in say 10-15 years - the time needed for these youngsters of today to mature.
And still this falls somewhat short of predicting whether email will still be used in future or not. Email is a tool, and it has its ups and downs for different purposes. Today there are lots of areas (esp. collaboration related) where it is not all that great, and yet people still use it because they don't really have an alternative. Well, once they will have a better tool for a specific purpose, they will use it for sure. It still doesn't mean that email as we know it will be neglected; I'm fairly sure it will survive in some form or another due to its ubiquitousness.
>The ugliest question I got was: "We see from your grades and your resume that you're obviously a very intelligent person. In this company we have all sorts of people. How do you feel about working together with average people?" (Not an exact quote, it's taken from memory and translated). Try answering that question without being condescending.
Oh, this one is easy. You state that you have enough experience communicating and working with people of different intellectual capabilities, and, having known others that are above you in degrees of intelligence, it's safe to presume that you know what the 'averages' would expect of you and how they would like to be treated.
Well, there are enough issues where it is a question of individiual preferences rather than of 'truth'. In my Nokia-Motorola example, what is the correct answer? There is no correct answer.. especially if you consider that -Adams-style! - most people don't know the question, i.e. people don't really always know what they want from a product, they usually know what they THINK they want from one, and it's not that rare they turn out wrong on this. I know I have been in the past and will probably be in the future. :)
When you need a decision, you often don't want the 'real truth', and not even (gasp!) 'valid opinions'. You want to find someone who 'feels the way you do' and see what they would choose, following the simple reasoning 'he likes A, B, C and D, and I like A, B and C; maybe trying out D wouldn't be a bad idea.' Depending on how the ratings are implemented, the ability to find out your 'model person' of sorts could prove quite useful in lots of decisions.
That said, this doesn't devaluate the Valid Opinions entirely. It just kind of forces people to use social networks properly, that is, as just a bunch of (hopefully neatly sorted) opinions to choose from.
We already have that, it works that way in blogosphere. Why would this project be any different?